


The Ice Flower

by becky_dull



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Family, Gen, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becky_dull/pseuds/becky_dull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A takeoff on the first section of <i>Frozen</i>, only here the King and Queen of Arandelle get better advice from the trolls. Written as a gift for my older daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice Flower

Once upon a time in the kingdom of Arandelle, there were two little princesses, Princess Elsa and Princess Anna. They were sisters, and the very best of friends. They loved to play together every day. And while they liked going out and seeing their respective friends, one of their favorite things to do was play together in the very early morning, before their parents and the rest of the castle staff had wakened, in the vast palace halls.

One such morning Anna woke up first and jumped on her sister, still in bed: “Wake up, Elsa! Wake up wake up wake up! I want to go play!”

“Play by yourself,” Elsa said around a yawn.

Then Anna got a mischievous glint in her eye. “Hey Elsa—do you want to build a snowman?”

Elsa’s eyes opened fully and she smiled.

Elsa, you see, had a special power. Ever since she was born she had had the ability to conjure up ice and snow just by pointing her hand. And then after a while the magical snow would evaporate and the room would still be the same. But Elsa had trouble controlling her power, so her parents, the king and queen, told her not to tell anyone except them and Anna of her magical skill.

But Anna thought having an ice-making sister was the coolest thing in the world. They could go ice-skating and make snowmen whenever they wanted!

So the two little girls, giggling together, raced down into one of the empty ballrooms.

“Ready?” asked Elsa.

“Yes!” cried Anna.

Elsa stamped her foot and immediately the floor below them began turning to glistening, slippery ice. She waved her hand and a snowdrift blew. Anna laughed joyfully and immediately set to work making a snowman.

That morning was the same as all the other times they’d played together with Elsa’s ice and snow, except for the very end. Anna was laughing and leaping from snowbank to snowbank so quickly that Elsa couldn’t keep up with her. “Wait, Anna! Slow down!” she cried, but Anna was having too much fun to pay attention. Elsa slipped as she was letting loose another bolt of ice. The bolt smacked Anna in the center of her forehead and knocked her to the ground.

Elsa raced over to her sister. “Anna? Anna!” But Anna was cold and still.

“Mama! Papa!” Elsa cried, terrified.

The king and queen burst in. “Elsa!” snapped the king, seeing the high piles of snow in the middle of his castle. “This is getting out of hand.” Then he saw Anna’s inert body and raced to the girls.

“It was an accident,” sobbed Elsa. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

The queen gathered Anna up in her arms. “She’s unconscious. What can we do?”

“I know where we need to go,” said the king.

He loaded Anna onto one of his two fastest horses. The queen and Elsa took the other horse, and the four of them rode off deep into the forest, into a clearing of what looked like rocks. But when they approached, the rocks rolled by themselves and turned into a group of trolls, blinking in surprise at the intrusion.

The high priest of the trolls came forward and looked at Anna. Then he peered at Elsa. “Born with it or cursed?”

“Born,” answered the king. “And it’s getting stronger.”

The troll priest put his gray craggy hand on Anna’s forehead. “You’re lucky it wasn’t her heart. The head, we can work with.” He showed them Anna’s memories. “I will remove the magic... but keep the fun.” He gestured to cast the spell, and Anna shifted in the queen’s arms and sighed peacefully, smiling a little.

“She’s warm again!” cried the queen. “Oh, thank you!”

Elsa clutched her father’s arm and whimpered, “But... she won’t remember I have powers?”

“It’s for the best,” answered the king.

The troll priest said, “Listen, Elsa. You have a gift, that can bring much wonder and beauty. But it is also full of danger.” Elsa held on to her father tighter, her eyes wide. “And it could destroy.” A boom echoed in the distance, as if to emphasize the troll priest’s words.

Elsa began to cry. “Papa! Papa! I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Fear will be your enemy,” said the troll priest, sadly.

“No,” the king said. “No. I—I’m sure she can learn to control it.” He spoke hurriedly, one arm around Elsa and his other hand resting on the queen’s shoulder. “Until then, we’ll lock the gates. We’ll reduce the staff. We’ll make sure to keep her away from anyone she can hurt. Even—”

A rumble interrupted him—the sound of a large boulder clearing its throat, if boulders had throats.

Now another troll, even older and more wizened than the troll priest, came up to them. “The king is slow,” she said, in a creaky voice.

“What?” The king was so astonished he forgot to be frightened for a moment.

“The king is slow,” repeated the old troll. “He hasn’t yet caught up to the part about fear as the enemy.” She peered at the king. “If you’re afraid, how is Elsa going to learn not to be?”

The king looked down at Elsa, then back at the old troll, then back at Elsa. “But how—”

“But she’s _dangerous_!” the queen burst out suddenly. Elsa hugged herself and stared at the ground.

The old troll reached forward and jerked one of the queen’s hands away from Anna, so quickly and roughly the queen almost fell. “Look at this hand,” she said, gripping the queen’s wrist between her stony thumb and forefinger. “It can fire a gun. It can light a match. It can hold a head underwater. Is it not dangerous?”

“Please!” the king said angrily.

The old troll’s expression softened. She guided the queen’s hand to rest in Elsa’s hair. “And yet,” she said, “it is also not a hand of love?”

Elsa, tears running down her cheeks, looked up at the queen. The queen began to cry too, and reached out and pulled Elsa close to her, so she was holding both girls.

“We’ve done everything for you that we can,” the troll priest said gently to the king. “Elsa’s fate rests with her—and with you.”

“Thank you.” The king bowed low and led his family away from the trolls’ hideaway.

The king and queen returned to the castle and spent two days deep in thought. Important meetings were postponed; dinners were quick and silent; ministers grew impatient with waiting. Anna woke up with no memory of her sister’s powers. She also was a little tired, so mostly she and Elsa sat in her room and played dolls and ponies. Elsa was so very, very happy to have her sister back, safe and sound, and yet she was also scared of hurting Anna again, and also heartsick that Anna didn’t remember her powers and they couldn’t play together like that anymore.

Now the queen was the youngest of five sisters herself, and on the evening of the second day she dispatched an urgent telegram by fast horse to her oldest sister. And the next morning, just before breakfast, she received an urgent telegram back.

“I think I have a solution to our problem,” the queen told the king after breakfast. “My sister is sending the wisest woman in her kingdom—”

The king interrupted her in his indignation and fear: “Don’t tell me you told your sister about Elsa!”

“Not in so many words,” answered the queen, a little defensively. “But I told her it was a problem with uncontrollable magic, and she says she knows just the person. Crone Deborah has studied with wood and water fairies and has all kinds of experience with magic. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

Bright and early the next morning, even before the king and queen were used to waking up, their guards were knocking at their door to let them know of a visitor the like of which no one in Arandelle had ever seen.

She was a large woman, with silver streaks in her black hair tied up in a bun, and she wore a bright green dress and matching green eyeshadow. She was sitting patiently as the king and queen approached.

“We can’t do this,” whispered the king to the queen. “We can’t trust some gaudy stranger with Elsa.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” the queen whispered back.

Crone Deborah closed her eyes, as if she were daydreaming. Then suddenly, a patch of grass appeared on the red carpet at her feet. It spread to about six feet wide, and flowers began popping out of it—sunflowers. daisies, pansies, irises, hyacinths, lantanas, roses, zinnias, daffodils, a riot of color acting almost as a barricade between the royal thrones and the woman sitting quietly before them. Then, as the king and queen approached tentatively, she opened her eyes, and the flowers vanished.

“Your Majesties,” she said, “I hear you have a magic student in need of a tutor.”

The king and queen looked at each other, and the king said, “Well, uh, yes. You could say that.”

“I am the best,” said Crone Deborah, “and I work with the best. I trust you are not wasting my time.”

Now, usually people are too nervous to speak to kings this way, and the king was not pleased to hear himself addressed so impertinently. He was about to puff up his chest and scold the woman when the queen said quickly, “If you can help us we will be forever in your debt.”

The king and queen led Crone Deborah to a balcony overlooking the room where Elsa was waiting. Elsa had been awakened and told to wait, but not told why. She was bored and sad and nervous, and when bored and sad and nervous she tended to play with her ice powers. The three adults watched her look carefully at the doors, then conjure up some snow and build a snowman. “I’m Olaf! I like warm hugs!” she said to herself, moving the snowman’s arms.

“She almost killed her sister last week,” the queen told Crone Deborah. “We don’t know what to do.”

But Crone Deborah was smiling widely. “I’ll charge you room and board and a small stipend so I can send my nephews Christmas gifts,” she said, and clapped her hands together. “This is wonderful!”

The king and queen stared at her. “Did you say _wonderful_?”

“Well, of course! Look at her. She’s creative, she’s not destructive—unless that almost-killing-her-sister wasn’t an accident—”

“No!” the king and queen said firmly together.

“Well, then. A good heart, a good brain, loads of talent—oh, this is the best opportunity I’ve had in ages. And the heir to the throne, too! Normally heirs of small countries have such headaches. But this one, she’ll be able to improve your economy _and_ shore up your military power once I’ve got her going!” Humming a little, Crone Deborah tugged on the queen’s arm. “Come introduce me.” This was such a violation of protocol that the king and queen could have ordered Crone Deborah put in jail, but they were so dumbfounded they simply went along downstairs with her.

When the door opened, Elsa, who had been preoccupied with her magic, nearly jumped three feet in the air. Then she fell to her knees. “Mama, Papa, I’m sorry! I know you told me not to but there was no one here and—I’m sorry!”

“It’s all right, Elsa,” said the king, though he was far from convinced it would be. “Come get up and meet Crone Deborah. She’s going to be your new tutor.”

“But—” Elsa couldn’t help but look at all the snow on the floor.

Crone Deborah was smiling, but her voice was firm. “Make it disappear.”

“I—”

“Make it disappear,” Crone Deborah repeated.

“I—” And Elsa began to sob. “I _can’t_. I don’t know _how_.”

Crone Deborah made an impatient wave of her hand. A warm wind blew through the room, and in a flash all the snow and ice was gone. The king, the queen, and Elsa stared at her, open-mouthed.

“All right,” Crone Deborah said briskly, “that’s the first thing we’ve got to work on, is making it disappear. Otherwise you’ll just be leaving big soppy messes everywhere.” She took Elsa’s hand. “We’ve got a lot to do. I can’t believe your parents didn’t tell me about you two years ago. You don’t have a lot of training in the arcane arts, I take it, so we’ll have to start with—what is it, child?”

Elsa was almost shaking with the attempt not to cry. “But I’m not supposed to have powers,” she said in a small voice. “Even my sister doesn’t know I have powers anymore. I don’t want to hurt her again.”

Crone Deborah dropped to a squat next to Elsa so she could look Elsa in the eye. “Listen to me, Elsa. You have a choice. You can leave your powers alone—but that doesn’t mean they’ll go away. They’ll always be with you, whether you like it or not, and you’ll always be struggling to conceal them. Or you can come with me, and embrace them. Learn to use them. Learn to use them to make beautiful things.”

“O-okay,” Elsa said reluctantly.

But Crone Deborah remained where she was. She held both of Elsa’s hands in her own and looked at her very seriously. “You won’t have an easy time of it either way, child. I don’t want to tell you you will. That would be a lie. If you’re willing to embrace your powers, you’re going to need to work very hard.”

“Work?” repeated Elsa. She’d never thought of her powers as work before. She’d only ever used them for fun.

“Work,” repeated Crone Deborah. “Give me one month. One month of hard work, every day, sunrise to sunset, and at the end of it I believe we can make sure you have your sister and your powers. Will you work with me?”

Elsa took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Yes.”

“All right, child.” Crone Deborah rose, still holding one of Elsa’s hands. “Your Majesties,” she said to the king and queen with a quick bow, and led Elsa away.

It _was_ hard work. Very hard. Elsa spent hours blasting targets with icicles, over and over again, and hours working on visualizing ice sculptures. She read about snow and ice, about the history of ice magic, about how the human body reacts to extreme cold, and about different elemental magics. There were lessons on anatomy, physiology, meteorology, and chemistry. Or she was doing exercises so that her body would be strong enough to handle magical shocks. Then there were the lessons on understanding herself—on why she tended to produce the magic inadvertently when she was sad or scared or angry, and how to control that power better.

She went to bed tired every night, and she had little time for play. There were times when she hated Crone Deborah for making her work so hard. But even when she got upset, Crone Deborah would say calmly, “They say the darkest hour is just before dawn, child, and this means your dawn is coming.”

Worst of all, Elsa couldn’t see Anna. Anna had fully recovered, but she couldn’t play with her sister now and she didn’t understand why not. She was bored and impatient. The king and queen were worried they had made the wrong choice. All in all it was a tense month in Arandelle’s castle.

Then finally one day Crone Deborah requested that the king and queen and Anna meet her and Elsa in the secondary ballroom one evening.

“Elsa!” Anna yelled with joy as she hugged her sister. “I’ve missed you so much! I don’t know why you had to do all that stupid studying.” And she shot Crone Deborah a nasty look.

But Crone Deborah merely smiled and said to the king and queen, “Your Majesties, why don’t we go up to the balcony and watch the princesses play together for a bit.”

The king and the queen were apprehensive. How did they know that Elsa wouldn’t hurt Anna again? But they followed Crone Deborah up the stairs to the balcony.

Downstairs, Elsa and Anna began a happy game of chase in the big room. Anna was leaping and yelling; Elsa followed, more carefully. But then, they heard a pounding on one of the big ballroom doors. They stopped, frowning at each other.

“Johann?” Anna called. Johann was one of her favorite guards, and she’d seen him in the hallway on the way to the ballroom.

But instead came a high-pitched shriek of laughter that made both girls shiver.

Upstairs, the king and queen heard the evil laugh. The king leapt to his feet. “Who is that? Guards! Where are the guards?”

The evil voice said, “Where’s little Princess Anna?” and laughed again.

The doors flew open and soldiers ran in. Not soldiers like the ones Elsa and Anna waved to on Veterans’ Day—no, these were demon soldiers, their faces ghastly grey, their hands clawed, and they seemed to slither as much as run. The tips of their swords burned a fiery red, and they seemed to glow horribly. Anna screamed in terror and clutched her sister.

The king was still shouting for his guards. The queen shook Crone Deborah: “Please, stop them!” But Crone Deborah seemed to have fallen asleep.

Elsa watched as the demon soldiers filled the room, chanting, “Little Princess Anna, little Princess Anna,” in unearthly voices. “No!” she cried. “You can’t have my sister!” She felt the tips of her fingers tingle. For a moment she remembered what had happened to Anna before, and she was afraid. Then she heard Crone Deborah say in her head, as she’d heard thousands of times in the past month: “You have it, it doesn’t have you. Aim, and focus.”

She aimed, and shot forward a wave of ice, knocking the soldiers back.

The king and the queen gasped, and Anna said, “Wow!”

The soldiers started back, and Elsa sent forward another icy blast that shattered some of their swords. She stamped her foot and the floor beneath them turned icy. She aimed low and their feet were frozen to the ground. But they slapped at their feet with their flaming swords, breaking the ice, and kept going.

Then Elsa closed her eyes and concentrated hard. A wall of ice, two feet thick, rose up out of ground, completely encircling her and Anna.

“I can’t see them!” cried the king. He turned furiously to Crone Deborah. “If they’re hurt at all I’ll have your head!” Crone Deborah stirred not in the slightest.

Inside the ice cylinder, Anna said, “Now what?”

“I’m going to open up a path to the door,” Elsa said. “That'll give you time to get out.”

“But Elsa!”

“I’ll come later. I promise. But I’ve got to keep them busy so you can get away. Hold on.”

Elsa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Two massive ice walls appeared, making a path to their cylinder. The doors burst open, and Anna ran forward. They slammed shut behind her.

The demon soldiers’ chanting was growing louder. Elsa didn’t know what to do. It had taken almost all of her strength to create the ice walls, and she could hear them chopping at the walls with their flaming swords. Anna was crying, “Elsa! Elsa! I don’t want to leave without you!” But Elsa wasn’t sure she could reinforce the ice walls and run at the same time.

Up in the balcony, Crone Deborah suddenly opened her eyes, and the demon soldiers disappeared without even a puff of smoke.

“It’s all right, Elsa,” she said, in a calm voice. “Take the walls down now. Slowly. Like in practice.”

Elsa gathered up her remaining strength and slowly lowered her hands. As the walls came down, she gasped. Where the demon soldiers had been only a minute ago there were now flowers—flowers everywhere, seemingly a blanket of flowers, and flower petals floating gently down from the ceiling.

The doors opened again and Anna ran into the room. She stopped short when she saw the beautiful flowers. “Wow!” She looked around in awe. “You did this, too?”

“Not this,” Elsa said, looking around.

“But—the ice. You did that.”

Elsa nodded, carefully, and held out her hands. The air crackled between them as ice crystals flew and came together—into the shape of a flower: a perfectly formed, detailed ice flower. She held it carefully by the stem out to Anna.

Anna took it for a moment and looked at it before her face broke into a wide grin. “You saved me!” She flung both arms around Elsa. “You are the best big sister _ever_!”

“I’m always going to protect you, no matter what,” Elsa said, hugging her back.

Anna pulled back to look at the ice flower again. “This is so cool! I can’t really wear it in my hair, though. Hey, can you make ice straws? That way when it gets hot in summer, we can sip our drinks through ice straws.”

“Yeah. And look.” Elsa pointed at the ice flower and it evaporated, stem to tip. Anna’s face fell, but Elsa giggled. “Here!” And then she made a whole ice bouquet.

Up in the balcony, Crone Deborah was watching them with a smile, and the queen was crying in joy.

“There were no demon soldiers, were there?” the king asked Crone Deborah. “That was entirely you.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t warn Your Majesty,” said Crone Deborah. “Elsa’s a perceptive child. If she had had any warning that it wasn’t real—”

“I understand.” The king bowed his head. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Crone Deborah waved a dismissive hand. “Of course you were skeptical. There’s not a lot of good information to go on when you have a child like Elsa. But now that you’ve seen what she can do, will you accept me as her tutor?”

The king nodded, and the queen said, “Oh, thank you so much!”

Meanwhile, down in the ballroom, Anna took some purple flowers and squeezed them in her hands to make dye, and Elsa added some crunchy snow, and the two girls laughed and laughed over their purple snow cones.


End file.
